‘Back to Love’ and [club] steps in time

With the bloody Crazy Frog topping the chart, one wonders what is the average age of singles buying person? In other words - how many of them could actually remember 1989? Very unlikely because it looks like the average age of record buyers could actually be lower than 10! Thus, ’89 sounds as historic as 1969 or the World War 2 years…

The rest of us, who are slightly mature, can reminisce of that ‘Summer of Love’n’Beats’ that collects a great selection of songs from the period. It features tracks picked from the period when House made crowds feel like newly ‘happy, shiny people’ and Hip-hop’s power was blossoming and freaking out the alarmists… ‘Back To Love’ is a retrospective with a difference. Many commercial big-hitters are sidelined in favour of underground tracks that made their mark in the clubs, on the streets and in the record collections of the more discerning listener.

Hed Kandi head honcho Mark Doyle says: “CD 1 kicks off with 2 soulful classics from the slightly obscure Ceybil Jeffries and the absolutely huge Robert Owens. Moving on, Inner City need no introduction and both Pamela Fernandez and Nicole may not sound overly familiar but one listen will take you straight back to a dancefloor in 1990. Malaika’s ‘So Much In Love’ may be new to many people but it was one of my favourites and was missed by a lot of people when it was released.”

“The penultimate track is a rare treat - a completely unreleased track by Degrees Of Motion. After their success with ‘Shine On’ and ‘Do You Want It Right Now’, ‘Celebrate’ never received a full release. It’s only through our relationship with Eric Kupper that we were able to contact Richie Jones and secure this track for the compilation. We close CD1 with a hands in the air Chicago house piano anthem the timeless ‘Better Days’ by Jimi Polo and move on to CD2.”

“As always CD2 is a mixture of goodtime tunes that don’t stick to any set style but were the tracks that dropped near the end of the night purely for the reaction of the crowd. The first few are fairly relaxed but still goosebump-raising soulful anthems, from Chanté Moore [Love’s Taken Over’] to The Brand New Heavies [‘Stay This Way’] each track is a hands-in-the-air-on-the-dancefloor-with-your-friends anthem.”

Neneh Cherry adds her funky attitude with ‘Buffalo Stance’, NWA urge to ‘Express Yourself’ whilst A Tribe Called Quest ponder ‘Can I Kick It?’ challenge you to stay calm, static and unaffected, and Sister Sledge drop soul-licious ‘Thinking Of You’. The CD closes with a rare disco classic from Chicago, ‘Street Player’.

This edition - the 7th in the series - certainly is shaped up to be one of the best ever and should find a way onto many a sun-kissed players this summer, from Ibiza to Reykjavik.

Satisfaction guaranteed even if you have no clue who Kurt Cobain was and what he did in 1994...

8/10